


Remote Access

by Kathar



Series: Two-Man Rule [7]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Catharsis, Comic Book Violence, Depression, Episode: s01e15 Yes Men, M/M, Post-Episode: s01e11 The Magical Place, Ronin - Freeform, Self-Destructive Behavior, aftermath of a break-up, cameos by Skye Kate Bishop Maria Hill and Phil (kinda), tracksuit mafia - Freeform, up second half
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-06
Updated: 2014-04-06
Packaged: 2018-01-18 11:01:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1426099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kathar/pseuds/Kathar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Since the break-up with Phil, Clint has been almost totally isolated. He can’t stop thinking about Phil and he can’t concentrate on anything else. It’s a perfect moment, if you’re a Tracksuit Dracula, to make the pesky guy an offer. A really tempting offer: an honorable out.</p><p>If Clint wants to get out of this mess, he’s got a lot of work to do. Luckily, Ronin’s here to help. And Clint? Clint might-- finally-- be turning a corner. Or two. Or even three.</p><p>Heed the tags-- trigger warnings in end notes. This is Captain America 2 compliant, but no spoilers outside of what was in trailers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remote Access

**Author's Note:**

> You don’t necessarily need to have read the rest of Two-Man Rule, but it helps. If you’re a regular reader, that fix [Faeleverte](http://archiveofourown.org/users/faeleverte/profile) and I promised? Starts halfway through this story. And don’t worry, we’re still on track post Winter Soldier, bubbling excitedly at all the new developments.
> 
> Since Hawkeye 15 has finally goddamn come out, now is probably the time to note that Fae and I aren’t even _trying_ to keep Two Man Rule compatible with the Marvel 616 verse. This is an MCU story despite the trappings we borrowed from Fraction. And if that wasn’t obvious before now, it really will be by the time this story finishes.
> 
> Thanks to the amazing Two-Man betas, [Selana](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Selana/pseuds/Selana) and Beta J. As always, the readability of this story is due to their efforts. And thanks over and over again to Faeleverte, the best series co-parent a writer could ask for.

It was now, at his best guess, the 27th time Clint had read the letter over, and Kate’s bubbly purple handwriting had blurred with each beer-- really, the beer, not anything else that might cause his eyesight to fuzz and drip at the edges. He didn’t know what he was looking for, some clue or hidden message between the curves of the a’s and the little half-lines that connected the legs of the y’s to the next letter. Something, _anything_ that would mean that he was not actually, at that moment, utterly alone.

He read it again.

 _Okay. This looks bad. I know this looks bad. But just read to the end, okay, Clint? While you were gone (again), Dad and I got into it, really badly this time. And I have to get out-- of this city, really. And since I’m not gonna live with_ you _because that would only end in tears, I decided to go travel a bit. To Los Angeles, since I’ve always wanted to go there, again, and Dad won’t go there since Mom died. Anyway, the guys and I kind of got into some trouble and it’s better if I’m ~~not near you~~ out of town for a bit. So, you know, see you later and keep safe. And, as you’ve no doubt guessed, I took Lucky._

_Stop shouting Clint, geez. Honestly, Clint, you’re never here, and Lucky is a dog and dogs need companionship and he likes me, and if you really think about it, he’s just exchanging one Hawkeye for another. Anyway, I’m worried about him here without you. Simone’s kids try, but those tracksuit brodudes have been hanging around again and what if they got hold of Lucky? So Lucky is heading to California with me, and I’ll make sure to rub sunscreen on his nose and he and I can lounge by the pool and mix with all the stars and their corgis. (No pocket chihuahua jokes, Clint, that is so ten years ago.) I’ll send you pictures all the time and we’ll be back before you know it._

_So stay safe, Hawkeye._

_Kisses,_

_Hawkeye_

_P.S.: something about a dumpster?_

For the 28th time, he didn’t find anything.

Letters like that, letters like that, letters like that _ought_ to have hidden messages, he thought as he tipped back approximately his umpteenth beer since he’d started drinking. (He could have, if he’d tried, figured out exactly how many-- the dead soldiers were mostly stacked next to his couch, but he wasn’t sure he could count as high as umpteen anymore.)

Beer hadn’t been his first choice, but thanks to Nat and Phil-- _christ_ \-- there hadn’t been more than a couple good glasses of the hard stuff left in his apartment, and he hadn’t had time or cause to pick more up before he’d hared off in all directions when Phil went after Centipede. And got himself caught. And fucked up. And then Clint had hared off after him again and had fucked up so royally it was a wonder, a wonder, a wonder that… fuckit.

One shot of whiskey had gone down on the first read of that letter. The letter, which he found just after he got back from Lima, from leaving-- _leaving_ leaving-- Phil.

The second shot had gone when he’d tried to call Nat, see if she was in town, could come over or even just take a moment to let him whine over the phone before berating him into some kind of shape. She’d answered, if “Hey, on a mission. Can’t talk. See you in a few weeks,” could be counted as any kind of answer.

The rest of the whiskey had disappeared once he’d gotten his shit unpacked (well, dumped on the floor of his closet), only to end up with a small brushed-metal card case in his hand, his end of the “Clint Cam,” (Phil’s name), that had allowed them, for such brief time, to talk to each other across the distances and miles. Certain body parts had proven that a week is sufficient time to develop a Pavlovian response to objects, and Clint’d flung the damn cam in a drawer and decided that getting shit-faced was a perfectly reasonable course of action. Luckily, he still had a case of beer sitting in the closet.

Nevermind why. 

Came in handy, times like this, when everyone he cared about abandoned him.

____

More whiskey had come and gone, and come again, and was in the process of going, and there was another case of beer sitting opened in the middle of the tiny bit of floorspace his kitchenette possessed. Clint _had_ been eating, goddamnit. A microwave burrito here or there, until he got tired of the molten bean and cheese mixture scorching his fingers and the frozen bits in the middle. Then he’d switched to frozen pizzas until he happened to forget to remember that Lucky was gone and that he had to eat the entire pizza himself or put it away. And he’d trip over the plate of uneaten pieces a few hours later and stare at them for ten minutes before tossing them in disgust.

Simone’d stared at one of the plates, then at Clint, then back at the plate, the day she’d come to complain about the… what had she been complaining about? The boiler? No… he hadn’t tried to shower lately but the water still ran at least moderately hot when he used the sinks. The electricity? No, she’d have been back. Maybe the trash? Yeah. Something about the trash. Maybe the heat-- he’d heard that in passing from one of the other residents. Or maybe it was the tracksuits, hanging around again. He wished they’d show, really. Could have used someone to beat up. Or beat him up, whichever.

He’d been in to SHIELD, because SHIELD housed the archery range. He’d come in, shoot until his legs and arms and shoulders shook and his vision blurred and his stomach was beginning to turn over from the incipient hangover. Then he’d stick his head under the shower and disappear again. Email went unopened, or quickly scrolled over, agents went ungreeted, he was pretty sure everyone thought he was a zombie by now, or a ghost haunting the corridors of headquarters like Dugan was said to do, only without the cigar smoke.

It was the only release he had, he’d discovered sometime on the second day of the bender. He’d been far enough gone by then that he’d been replaying the scene in the convent garden in Lima in his mind; Phil wide-eyed and mussed in the flashlight’s beam as he swept it up Clint’s body. In his version, however, when Clint stepped over Waarzegster’s fallen body and swept Phil into his arms, Phil had gone pliant, dropping the flashlight, pulling Clint’s mask off, kissing him deeply and then sighing as Clint looked, felt him all over. 

Clint’s dick had tried to get in on the action here, a valiant attempt considering his probable blood alcohol level and lack of food, and he’d pressed his palm against it, trying to decide whether he had the strength of mind to do something with it, when Phil-in-his-head had pulled back and said:

“ “Not… no. Just don’t… don’t do that,” and stared at Clint like he didn’t know him anymore, and perhaps found him a little… grotesque? Just like he had in really-Lima.

It had spiraled from there into other memories, worse memories, the ones he’d been trying to drink to forget. Standing in front of Phil-- in front of Coulson, really-- in that absurd little office at the top of a tricked-out jet plane, standing at Skye’s side in his stifling black-and-gold ninja costume and taking all the blame for them both on his own head. Wilting under the barrage of accusations Phil spat at him when they were alone, the sheer dizzying variety of them. At the best of times it was difficult to keep up with the quicksilver way Phil’s mind would flash and bend-- the chase was intoxicating. Clint had realized, as he drowned in bewildered hurt, that he’d never had the full force turned on him. Never truly been picked apart as if Phil saw him as nothing but a suspect, one witholding time-sensitive information.

Never before seen him as a threat.

“You just… I can’t trust you, Clint. Not around me, and not around my team.”

The fuck of it was, Clint was crying and his goddamn dick was still hard.

_____

The case of beer, as it turned out, was being kept for the aftermath of the meeting that had just happened with Deputy Director Hill, who’d put on her most citrus-sucking expression for the occasion.

“We’ve given you a lot of leeway, in consideration of your… condition after the Battle of New York, Agent Barton,” and “the Director’s gone to bat for you any number of times,” followed with “but your recent actions,” and he was already tuning out.

His recent actions. His recent actions jumping the gun and single-handedly-- okay, double-handedly with the Black Widow-- taking out a small Centipede base in Europe before the order was given. His recent actions going AWOL from SHIELD. (Hey, he’d left a note! And it wasn’t like they’d been using him for anything.) Both of them undertaken because Phil Coulson had been in danger halfway across the world. He hadn’t been able to save Phil the first time, but he’d been able to provide a distraction so that Phil’s team could. The second time he _had_ saved Phil, thank you very much Mr. Agent “I Can Take Care of Myself,” and nothing Hill could do to him could punish him more than Phil had for that. For getting involved. For fucking _caring._

This, Clint knew, was the original sin: that it turned out he cared more about Phillip J. Coulson than he did about a career at SHIELD. 

And it _was_ a sin, Clint had no doubt of that. Not because SHIELD was more worth his loyalty-- it wasn’t. It so wasn’t.

Because Phillip J. Coulson didn’t care about him the same way. And Clint should have known better than to hope, than to cling to Phil like a drowning man to a spar. As if, as long as Phil was okay, Clint’s world would somehow go on turning, despite everything Clint had done. 

To be clear, that was: allow himself to get ambushed and mindfucked by an alien who called himself a god, become a weapon to be used by said godling to cripple the Helicarrier and attempt to take down the entire fucking world. And, lastly and worst, to profoundly fail to deal with the consequences of his actions, to go so far as to spy on SHIELD itself, to distrust them far enough to, well.

To find out just how much they were hiding from him.

And not to be able to deal with that knowledge, the way Natasha would have. The way Phil would have. The way a spy _should_ deal with the completely non-shocking revelation that a spy agency had hidden things from them. What the hell did he _think_ he’d been dealing with?

The only real shock was that Hill hadn’t fired him on the spot, burnt him, given him a half-day head start, or just put him out of his misery right there.

No, instead, he got a suspension to fucking _think about what he’d done_ \-- which he profoundly hoped she had no actual idea about-- and then have a meeting with her and Director Nicholas One-Eye Fury himself to _discuss your future at SHIELD_.

This was an umpteen-beer problem, at the least.

____

 

He was very much afraid he was hard again. 

Not enough beer, clearly. 

Clint slumped on the couch, curled up, dug a hand down into his sweatpants and stroked, gently. This had happened several times, and each time he’d tried a different tactic. For a while he’d tried to think about anyone _but_ Phil. Not about Nat-- too damn long ago, she was too much of a sister now, plus all thoughts of her led back to Phil. The last lay he’d tried to bring home, after New York, hadn’t even gotten halfway through the door before he’d tossed her back out. He’d been suddenly convinced she was a plant. There’d been a few he’d gone home with, a few he’d gone into back rooms with, but they just didn’t _work_. He couldn’t, in the alcoholic haze, remember what a single one of them looked like well enough to get off.

And all thoughts of Before led back to Phil. Why the fuck that should be he didn't know; Before had been liberally populated with some really goddamn good partners, short-term or longer-- well, somewhat less short-term-- of all shapes and sizes and proclivities. Probably because it had been too damn long ago, again, and all faces fuzzed, all asses blurred by the passage of time. Only Phil’s had been constant in his bed and in his heart.

He was never going to get off again.

Going back to the very beginning hadn’t helped, either. He’d managed to get halfway through, on the memory of the look of blitzed wonder on Phil’s face, that first time in the front seat of a car, before that memory had merged with the first time _after_ , Phil laid out on his bed, so improbably alive and present and _his_ , if he wanted.

God, he’d wanted.

He just hadn’t trusted… he’d been right not to trust.

So, yeah, he’d run away first, he’d been the one to say the words in the end. It was going to hurt too fucking much to hear them from Phil, in that mild voice gone hard. The voice that had, the last time they’d been together, been saying… _things._ Or nearly saying them. Things that even at the time Clint should have known he’d never mean, because he was saying them to Clint Barton.

And Clint Barton only ever fucked shit like this up. 

He was fine at the part of life where you kill people, spy on people, and generally be a badass. It was the part of life where you be an actual person that he sucked at.

Oh, and apparently the part of life where he was a landlord; half the residents had signed a note and delivered it under his door, reminding him that the dumpster was full and the heat was spotty and at least one satellite had been knocked over and could he please do his fucking job?

No, he couldn’t.

Ask Deputy Fucking Director Hill.

Oh… he’d been trying to do something, there, in his pants.

Clearly _that_ wasn’t happening, again.

His hand had nearly withdrawn from the waistband when there was a knock on the door. He jumped and fell off the couch, smacking his forehead on the corner of the coffee table as he went down.

“Aw, table, no,” he muttered, and got up to go to the door.

When he opened it to find one of the larger and more cheesy-smelling of the tracksuit draculas leaning against his doorframe, in a menacing yet sporty fashion, Clint greeted him with:

“Finally I found a _use_ for one’a you guys.” 

“Bro? What you mean, bro?” Tracksuit Sergei (Clint had taken to giving them made-up names) asked him truculently.

“Turns out you can kill a guy’s boner just by showing up.” 

What was kind of amazing about that exchange was that Tracksuit Sergei didn’t flatten him. Oh, he drew himself up like he was gonna, sure. Puffed himself out like the bear at the door or the wolf in the… the… door...frame… and opened his mouth to roar.

What actually came out after a long moment was:

“Bro, why we gotta stand on that foot, bro? Can’t a bro come in all sincerity to ask himself how a bro is keeping with all his new landlording duties? Just one bro to another bro, seriously, you know, bro?”

“I….” Clint broke off, staring hard and blinking, and trying _not_ to look behind him at the truly impressive barricade of dead soldiers he’d stacked like cordwood around the couch. Tracksuit Sergei looked that direction anyway, saw them, and nodded solemnly.

“Is tough business, bro? Being landlord? Being responsible for aaaaaaaaall these peoples? Is enough to drive any man to drink. My bro Ivan, he used to drink lots and lots, when he was landlord of buildings like this. Oh, man, the things he used to tell me. Is so much to keep up, yes?”

He’d oozed past Clint and into the apartment before Clint had quite realized what was happening.

Perhaps, maybe, Clint had been letting himself disappear a little bit _too_ far into a beer bottle?

Sergei was ranging slowly across the room, sliding one greasy finger across Clint’s breakfast bar-- or trying to; the detritus of multiple pizza boxes, melted skittles, and encrusted gobs of burrito filling made the digit’s process difficult.

“Ah, yes,” Sergei said, scratching at a bit of crust. “The diet of superheroes, no? Seriously, my bro Ivan, always with the heartburn. Responsibility, bro,” he shook his head lugubriously, then lifted his fingernail and sniffed it. “Ah, Reser’s beef’n’bean. Good taste you got, bro. Where’s your dog, bro-- oh, now, what I done to deserve that?” He’d turned back, to find that Clint had slipped the longbow off its hook above the couch, and had drawn on him from a safe distance. “You should be careful, don’t want an accident, bro.”

“Nothin’ I shoot is an accident, Sergei,” Clint said. “Not even drunk as this.” 

“Basil, bro.” Sergei looked, if possible, even more like a distressed bulldog.

“What?”

“Name is Basil, bro.”

“Oh.” A tumble of responses fought to get out of Clint’s mouth, but he managed to repress all of them except: “Who’s Sergei, then?”

“You tell me, bro, you tell me. Look, I just came here to chat, bro. Boss, he says you an’ him, maybe you get off on the wrong foot. Maybe you talk to boss, bro to bro?”

“Your boss can go fuck himself, Basil. The building’s mine now. I don’t know what the fuck you guys wanted with it, but you’re not turfing anyone out anymore. Or hurting them, as long as I’m here.”

“Yeah yeah, but how often you here, bro?” _Possibly permanently, if SHIELD and Phil both don’t want me anymore_ Clint thought, and apparently he must have scowled horribly or looked something other than as sad panda as he felt, because Sergei-Basil held up his hands in a warding gesture. “No, bro, no. Is not like that this time. New leaf, right, bro? Seriously, bro, not threatening neighbors right now. Not pointing out how hard it is to keep track of whole building alla time, bro. No. Seriously no. Not mentioning so many of us, so few of you, and where’s your girl gone, bro? Seriously, no.” He looked around. “Or your dog, bro? She took the dog? Bro, seriously! Seriously, bro, that’s just fuckin’ wrong.”

“Basil, for the first time, I am forced to agree with you,” Clint said, and lowered the arrow he’d nocked just a titch. He was too fucking tired, too light-headed with lack of food and overabundance of alcohol, to trust himself to keep it up for much more stale-breathed bro talk. He might be threatening the building-- er, not threatening. Just mentioning. But Basil wasn’t doing anything at just that exact moment, and ugh. Just. Ugh. Was it naptime yet?

Basil nodded, solemnly.

“Bro, not so fucking stupid, hey, bro? Look, we notice, okay? We know. Hard to keep up with things, right? So maybe, bro, maybe heat’s not working? Maybe trash isn’t getting hauled, right, bro? Ivan, he told me the City, they don’t like it when trash don’t get hauled, when sewers back up, right, bro? Hard to take care of it all, though, seriously, bro. Takes more than one man, bro. Ivan, he used to have me to help, boss to help, bro.”

“So, what, Basil,” Clint bit back a reflexive snort of laughter, watching the way Basil tried to loom and appear unthreatening at the same time. He finally knew where this was going, anyway. “You applying to be my superintendent?”

Basil boggled at him, then laughed-- and god if he’d looked lumpish before, the way he tilted his head back and jiggled all over only increased his unfortunate resemblance to red jello in a tracksuit.

“No, no, bro, I got a good boss already, seriously. No but you see, boss thinks and thinks again, and he thinks, why not give the man a break, bro? You know? Hard job, building management. But what he gonna do? No-one’s gonna buy building from you, bro, ‘cause no-one want to deal with the boss, right bro? You know.”

Clint knew. 

Basil nodded at him, genially, and continued. “Is tough all around. Only, what happen if someone tell the City, bro? That trashmen don’t come and heat don’t work? What will City do, you know? Cause you lot of trouble, bro. Lots of fines. Maybe find not alla your papers in order? You know code, bro? City code? You sure everything okay? What if they condemn building?” 

It… was a fair point. Clint tilted his head, too strung out to do anything but say:

“And what’s your solution, big guy?”

“Ah, bro, seriously! Boss’s solution! All neat and easy: we pay you back. All money you use to buy building, bro? You get back. You take nice vacation, we all win, right bro?”

“And Simone? And Deke? The neighbors, where do they go?”

“Bro… you got money back, bro, right? So you buy them places other parts of town.”

“They kinda like it here, Basil.”

“They kinda did like it here, bro,” Basil told him. “How they like it with no trash and no heat and soon no water, and people getting hurt, bro?”

“You’re going to threaten them again, Basil?”

“No! No, no, forget it bro, no one gets hurt. Only you can’t help them move out without money, and this building, it’s hard for just one guy, all alone, to take care of. So,” Basil moved forward, stopped when Clint lifted the arrow back up, and smiled, wide and smarmy. After a long moment, he produced a card from his pocket, and left it on the one clean edge of the breakfast bar. “That boss’s number, bro,” he said. “You call soon, yeah? We do this the nice way, bro. The everybody win way. Yes, bro? Let us know by Friday, bro. Seriously, bro, you think about it?” 

Clint stared at the card.

 _Fuck off,_ he thought. _Get the fuck out of my building_ , he thought. _And never come the fuck back, your threats don’t scare me, I can take care of us all_ he thought.

“I’ll think about it,” he said. Basil backed out of the door, still smiling that long-toothed grin.

Clint looked around, bleary-eyed, then collapsed back onto the couch.

Alone.

____

The beer was all gone, and he hadn’t moved off the couch long enough to go out and get more. Sobriety wasn’t doing him any favors, though-- as he’d sobered up his stomach had dropped, until it was located approximately in the center of the earth, and its gravitational pull was enough that he was never gonna be able to stand again. Everything he’d numbed was starting to prickle back, and Clint realized after his lips had gone dry that he’d been chanting _run, run, run, run, run, run, run_ for at least five minutes.

He clicked his teeth shut.

No. He was a fucking spy, for fuck’s sake. A stone-cold assassin when he needed to be, he wasn’t just gonna sit on a couch until his body gave out or his knees gave way and he ended up in Barcelona. Or, well, or wherever he could most easily run to. West might be best, less ocean to cross. (Kate was in the West. Well, maybe if he gave LA a wide berth. Stayed north. Far enough to make sure he never saw her. Like, Portland.

Oh, fuck.

Portland.)

“No,” Clint said it to the air in general, and dust motes skittered. He had to talk to _someone_ before he went insane.

Someone who’d understand.

A few shaky moments later, he had the Clint Cam in his hands, was thumbing at the stylized decal on the front, watching it light up blue. Fifteen pulses in, he realized what was missing and shut it down.

After significant fumbling he realized he’d left the Ronin costume, in its duffel, by the door when he’d come in after Lima. The fabric was musty with his sweat.

He didn’t care, just pulled the hood over his head, and flipped the Cam back up and on. 

Long minutes later, his breathing stale through the fabric, his vision darkened and woven at the edges, he sighed and let the cam fall from his fingers.

She wasn’t answering. 

“Skye, c’mon, where the hell are you?” he muttered, even though he knew it was stupid. She was likely out on a mission, was all. 

Clint kept Ronin’s mask on while he hacked SHIELD’s servers. Again. Some more.

It made a convenient muffler for the moan he let out when he saw her status come across the screen at last.

Hospitalized. Critical condition. Gunshot wounds to the torso. Perforated intestines. Not expected to recover.

Quinn. 

The file said it was Quinn. Quinn who he’d never been able to sufficiently protect her from. And neither had Phil. (Or Ward, or May, or Chip and Dale there in the science lab, his rational mind tried to tell him, but holy fuck was that a losing battle.)

Phil had failed her just like Clint had.

Phil wasn’t… wasn’t allowed to fail people. He was pretty sure. (He hadn’t failed Clint-- that was fucking absurd. Clint had failed him. Clearly hadn’t been or done what he’d needed, and in the end had run before he could be sent away.) 

Oh, hell, Skye. Way to get someone into a dangerous situation then let them dangle.

The knock at his door this time was gentle, and followed by Simone’s voice in the hall.

“Clint?” A long pause. “Clint, you there? I thought I heard someone-- well-- are you all right?”

Clint bit down the urge to tell her just how not all right he was, as well as the urge to pretend he didn’t exist, and went to open the door.

He did remember to take the mask off. Barely.

____

 

“Simone?” 

“Yeah?” Simone was sitting next to him on the couch, now, her hands curled around each other as she slumped down. She wasn’t quite looking at him; the bouffant of her hair was haloing into the dusk in the periphery of his vision, blocking her face from him.

“Do you like it here?”

“Clint,” she warned him.

“No, listen. Do you like it here? I mean, better than any place else you could be? If… if you had the money to go anywhere, would you like to?” 

Her silence was long, and Clint breathed in shallow, letting shadows cover her, as he waited for her answer.

“It’s been a good place, Clint, hon,” she said at last. “I’ve liked being here. It’s home. It has… good people. But honey, if those good people went away? I suppose we had best go, too.” 

Clint nodded, watching her fingers twitch and clench. After a while she turned to him, placed on hand over his. Her palm was dry.

“If you can’t take care of us, I don’t want to be here,” she said. “We’re a lot of work, this building. No shame in knowing what you can’t do. But you gotta make a decision, Clint. You gotta be here, or not.”

He nodded again, stayed where he was as she let herself out.

____

“Hey, Clint?” Bruce’s voice was warm even through the tinny voicemail recording. “Hey, Tony said I should give you a call. He’s in California again, or he would. Or, well, he’d forget to call, but he’d mean to. I haven’t seen you in forever at the Tower. You know you’re still welcome here, right? I know Tony can be a handful, but he’s not here right now. I’d, um, I’d love some company some time. And… if you need anything, you know you can call, right?”

Clint raised an eyebrow at that one, and for a long moment, nearly picked up the phone. But, well, “anything”, as nice as the offer was, certainly didn’t extend to “help me get the trashmen to come, help me figure out how to get the Russian mob off my back, get Hill off my case, give me Natasha or Kate or Skye back, give me Phil back. Make me worthy of Phil.”

_Get me my fucking dog back._

What good would “anything” do, if it couldn’t do that?

He erased the message with a swift jab of his thumb.

____

The message he left was very brief. It only said: 

“I’ll sell.”

____

The details got set up quickly after that: wire transfer of the funds, full legal rites, how does next Tuesday sound? 

____

He didn’t put the Clint Cam in his go bag, or the Ronin costume. Or Lucky’s leash.

____

One envelope each for each of the tenants. One for Kate, with Lucky’s papers. One for Hill, with a letter of resignation. One little box for Skye, with the Cam. All laid out on the breakfast bar. (The burrito scraps and the pizza boxes were gone in the orgy of cleaning he’d done as he prepared.)

____

He was sitting at the breakfast bar, working on the latest iteration of a letter to Nat. This one hadn’t gotten farther than “Dear Nat,” in his chicken scratch hand, before the words had dried up. He chewed on the back end of the cheap blue Bic as he tried to formulate complete sentences.

He didn’t realize that the little box containing the Clint Cam had been buzzing until it buzzed itself right off the bar and onto the floor.

By the time he got to it, fumbled the layers of packaging tape off the box and wrestled it open, it was silent and dark.

____

“Okay, so, sorry I missed you,” Skye said, and she looked horrible, truly horrible. Her face was pale and sallow, except where bruises engulfed her dark eyes. Her hair was limp and dry and clearly hadn’t been combed. She was in a hospital bed, in some cramped space, and she darted her eyes to the corners every few seconds. She was the most exquisite thing Clint had seen in a month of Sundays. “I was kinda nearly dead there.”

Clint felt his breath come out in a sob.

“Not that that’s an excuse! Okay, okay, it’s totally an excuse, right. Maybe not for _you_ Mr. Badass Ninja Hacker guy, but for us mere mortals, okay? Maybe not for A.C. either, but that’s… look. I’m not sure how this really works and I don’t have a lot of time, in part because you have _no_ idea how hard it is to get my laptop to do a signal blocker from the little hospital pod, but I wanted to make damn sure any monitors my teammates had didn’t pick this up. If A.C. asks… well, that’s different. They’ll notice if I don’t take this down soon, oh god I’m babbling. Do I always babble this much? Ronin? Anyway, in case you knew I nearly died, hi! I didn’t! So don’t worry, okay? My team got me back and they got my back, and I’m told it was pretty epic and there was even a cute field agent who fell for Simmons because everyone falls for Simmons, right? And A.C.’s okay, and shit, you didn’t want me to tell you about him anymore. So. I won’t. But you called and I wanted to make sure you knew I wasn’t avoiding you, because after… well, after all that? I figured you might worry. Don’t worry. Not avoiding. Will call again once I’m out of this damn pod. Maybe I’ll catch you, right? Stay safe, will you, Ronin? Um, and, bye, I guess? Just for now! I promise.”

There had to be a way to replay all that, if only he could concentrate enough to find it.

Eventually, he did, but it took at least four repeats before Clint thought he’d caught half of it, and by that time his head was flung back and his eyes were squeezed tight and he felt like he couldn’t breathe fast enough to take air into his lungs past the sobs fighting to get out.

He wanted to call her back, wanted to scream at her for finding him _worthwhile_. For assuming he’d still care. Wanted to tell her he’d packed her all up in a little box with extra rolls of tape.

Wanted to make sure she _never_ found that out, because she didn’t deserve that.

She deserved so damn much, for putting up with him, for putting up with Phil. He wasn’t sure which would be worse for her now; his own breakdown or whatever was happening with Phil that had turned him so brittle. Hurricane or ice storm. But Skye wasn’t only offering herself, again, to him when he’d failed her so completely. She was assuming her place was there and secure. And telling him she wanted it.

The tears, when they came, when they finally came, were quickly followed by vomiting.

Clint did make it to the sink.

**************************************************

If only it were as simple as realizing that someone was so very certain he was worth it that she hadn’t even asked the question.

If only that made the sun shine again and the birds chirp and Clint competent. 

And clean and clear-headed and all sorts of other things he’d like to be.

What it did was leave him shaky and scared and very hollow.

In the quiet space within himself, though, once the buzzing stopped in his ears, something slipped out of a crack and whispered.

 _You didn’t run._ It said.

It took an absurdly long time for him to realize it was either his own voice or Phil’s, and what it was referring to.

That night up at the top of the Bus, when Clint was caught in the whirlwind of Phil’s anger, his distrust, his desolation, more and more confused with each blow that landed. 

Maybe he’d been the one to leave the relationship, yeah.

Phil had been the one to run.

Phil.

Had been the one to run.

It felt like a million years since he’d felt the air come fully into his lungs; like he hadn’t breathed clear since primeval times.

Clint could honestly say he had never once in their acquaintance had that thought.

It made him wonder just how often Phil had run, before. 

He thought he could see the pattern.

Run from him in the fold-out bed in the office in his Bus, the Night Before Everything Changed, retreating into sex just as surely as Clint had in order to avoid whatever was between them.

Run from him behind barricades of protocol and regulations and professionalism.

Run from him into angry distance when the phorms got too phrequent.

Not… not that Clint hadn’t done his share of running, but it’d been fucking _mutual_ , all right?

And if Phil could come back (always did come back for him), he must be worth some kind of effort.

Even if right now….

No. Really, no, he was in no kind of shape to try and figure out what _now_ meant with him and Phil.

The important part was that he kept coming back… and so did Clint. And it only got better when they did. (Well, it didn’t get any worse.)

And Nat kept coming back. She’d come back-- she always had.

Kate… well, it was her first time.

But if they kept on coming back for him, Clint had to come back for them, too. For some reason, they all seemed to think he would.

All relied on him. Which, since none of them were actively insane (well, maybe Phil at the moment), meant he must be reliable.

It was a very odd view of himself, one Clint hardly recognized. Like the first time you clean the toothpaste spots off the mirror and see yourself clear.

The important question, really, was what was he gonna _do_ about it?

It was the scariest question he’d asked himself in a long time, and that included questions like “is the agency I’ve given half my life to lying to me” and “is my lover really dead?” and “is my lover really alive and if so is he an android?” 

‘Cause there was really only one answer, which was “fix things,” and _fuck_ if Clint knew how he was gonna do that.

He replayed Skye’s message one last time, hoping for an answer.

“Maybe not for _you_ Mr. Badass Ninja Hacker guy, but for us mere mortals, okay?” she said, and Clint began to laugh.

He was really rusty at it. It felt good.

____

The sun was setting over the roofs of the tenements, the skyline of the city proper in the distance. Haze shortened the horizon, and Clint set down his screwdriver and looked up for the moment, one hand braced on Simone’s satellite dish to prevent it falling.

If he was gonna do it, he had to do it quickly-- the fatal Tuesday was coming up fast. He still wasn’t sure if it was worth the risk. Yeah, sure, he could keep them from coming on for a bit, but they’d strike again as soon as he was gone. Unless they had a constant deterrent, it wasn’t gonna last till he could figure out a permanent solution.

It was a gorgeous view, the dirt and smog and the spikes of antennas and satellites breaking the horizontal lines all over. Here and there, figures moved on rooftops, anonymous in the gloom, and Clint smiled at them-- weak but more genuine than he had in ages.

Anyone could look like anything, in the gloom and with the right lighting. Especially anyone who regularly wore a mask.

“Fuck if I’m gonna give this up,” he muttered, then looked down at the severed cable at the base of the satellite, all neatly shorn. “Aw, coax,” he sighed. “Seriously, bro.”

The advantage in having served under Phil-- under Coulson-- _with_ Coulson-- for so long was that Coulson believed in cross-training. Long before he insinuated himself into the Rising Tide, Clint’d known how to weasel his way into an organization and blow them up from the inside. He’d only left his encounter with the original Ronin alive because of it. But what he wanted to do required more computing and crunching power than existed in his poor brain, and anyway a lawyer he was so fuckin’ not. This wasn’t as easy as bank accounts in the Caymans.

Well, those were part of it. But.

So, if he was really gonna do this, if he was _really_ gonna do this? He had to make a call.

Voices from the street wafted up to him, and he looked down to find Simone walking out, a boy by each hand, dark little silhouettes. She turned her head up at him, dropped a hand in order to wave, and walked off around the corner, her boys pulling at her arms like Lucky pulled at leashes.

Clint followed her, and noticed how the figure lurking in the alley next to the dumpster turned his head to watch.

Clint put down the shorn cable and picked up the phone. 

When it was answered, he heaved a sigh, held his breath, and let it out on a 

“Tony.”

Waited a bit, then:

“Yeah, I know, I know, shit’s gotten weird lately. Look? This isn’t about SHIELD. This is… this is… this is one fucked-up idiot who doesn’t know how to ask for help to another fucked-up idiot who’s been there, okay?”

A pause, then a single word on the other end, and the word was “okay,” and he laughed a little, as best he could with tension humming through his veins. The laugh must have been all Tony needed, because he started yammering, nearly non-stop.

“No, no, I don’t need you and a suit, and I know what you promised Pepper. Its her and JARVIS I need, really. Well. No not like _that_ although that’s a mental image I-- anyway. I need to talk to her about some, like, legal municipal building shit. And I need to use JARVIS to help me track a few things down. Quickly.”

When he put down the phone, his hands were shaking, and he had to brush them off on his jeans several times before they stopped feeling clammy. 

____

It was six o’clock on Tuesday evening, the height of commuting hell, when Clint slipped back in his own window, winded after the rooftop race back to his building from where he’d ditched the cab three blocks away. With any luck, his tail was still on that cab, which was on its slow and traffic-addled way to his appointed meet-up. His heart was thumping a prog rock rhythm in his throat, and his hands felt light, nerveless. 

He slipped on Ronin’s armor as he tapped at his laptop, frantic, going one-handed as he thrust his arms in the sleeves of the costume. The mask caused him barely a pause. Fully costumed, he stood and stretched, feeling the cloth weigh him down, smooth him out. Then, with a last firm tappity-tappity-tap-TAP, he shut the laptop down, stuffed his katanas through his sash, and hopped back out the window.

In the alley two buildings down, a sleek little BMW K 1600 motorcycle, borrowed from Tony Stark’s Tower garage, was nestled behind a convenient crate. Ronin straddled it, stroking the gas tank once in gratitude, and tilted his head back, looking for some kind of luck.

“Phil,” he whispered into the gathering dusk, like a talisman, and took off.

_____

Basil had backed himself into a corner. The farthest corner away from Boss, in fact, between two metal four-drawer filing cabinets. 

Because if you’d seen the shit he was seeing, bro? You’d be fucking shitting yourself, seriously. 

Boss was mad as Basil’d ever seen him, madder than alley cat caught in closing window, and screeching like a wizened cabbie, bro.

(No, not like a baba yaga or some other Russian shit, bro, seriously, why you think that? Basil was born in the Bronx, bro.)

Best Basil could tell, Boss was mad because the Kosciuszko Street bros were down at the precinct, something something public indecency something needed bail for thirteen. Fast, bro. 

Seriously?

Bail for thirteen was a normal Friday night with the bros, bro. Some of ‘em weren’t happy unless they’d done a parade through holding once a month. Trey, Basil knew, planned his walk for when the officer with the ass like two hamburger buns (Trey’s words-- Basil wouldn’t say that about a woman, bro) was on shift. Bail bond company was part of money laundering operation by now, so much money passed through it. 

But now? No money. Bond company had no money in the account, all gone. Boss cursed, went to accounts of bowling alley. No money. Seriously, bro, would Basil lie?

Okay, but would Basil lie about this?

Basil’s head poked up once at the name “Ivan,” listened long enough to hear “INS,” and banged his head against the file cabinet. It was getting absurd, bro, seriously. His own bro, brought in for bad papers? 

Of course the papers were bad, his parents hadn’t thought much about papers when they came over, Boss had always taken care of everything.

Boss wasn’t taking care of shit now, bro. 

Boss had many lawyers, had politicians, dude, more important had file clerks, all lined up doing Boss’s bidding, but only for money. Money and fear-- and now, bro? Now, lawyers not answering phones, politicians certainly not answering phones, file clerks gone home for night. Someone had more money. Or more fear?

“Is only temporary setback,” Boss growled at Basil.

Which was when the crash happened, in the front room.

Was _loud_ crash, bro. Louder than crash when Ivan went through plate window. Louder than crash when Ivan’s opponent went through wood flooring. Boss glared at Basil, and Basil, well.

Life, bro? Sometimes, life sucks. Sometimes, you know you’ll find only bad things around corner, but only bad things are in room with you, bro, and you choose your bad thing, and go.

Basil took one look out the door, to see the outside door had burst open, was being held open by a (pretty pretty) motorcycle, and goddamn ninja--

No, no, don’t look at Basil like he’s crazy, seriously, bro, is really for real ninja with swords and nunchucks and all that movie shit--

Where was Basil, bro? Right. Goddamn ninja taking out Sergei the Bouncer with a kick then putting Sasha the Muscle through a table. Russell-- freakin’ Russell who knew where he’d come from, bro, or why he was always around-- got behind ninja with a lead pipe. 

When Russell backed into a corner, wide-eyed, leaving his lead pipe in hands of black-and-gold ninja, Basil made his decision.

Then ninja turned his way, stopped, titled his head, like saying “coming, bro?”

Basil snorted, shook his head, backed himself back into the back room, backed himself past Boss, who had come into the doorway to see, and backed right the fuck back out onto the alleyway, through the rear entrance.

Boss may have upper hand tomorrow, but upper hand does no good without being alive to enjoy it, bro.

You can call Basil many things, bro, but dumb Basil is not. 

Seriously.

____

All things considered, casing the joint and drawing off several of the tracksuits with a brief Clint cameo in a nearby laundromat turned out to be a damn smart idea.

Ronin would’ve hated his odds if he’d stormed the seedy little bar--and whatever it was that went on in the basements on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday nights-- without drawing off some of the crowd first. As it was, he only had three Suits left to deal with when he put the BMW through the front door of the bar (poor damn thing deserved a less cliched end) and started causing mayhem.

Ronin liked mayhem.

He might actually be getting to like Tracksuit Basil, too. The big dude’d taken one look at him and his moustache had drooped like walrus whiskers. Then he just backed the fuck up and kept backing, and Ronin had decided to ignore him in favor of the little wizened shrew of a man in white lounge gear and oversize glasses. Who hissed at him.

“Hello, Bro,” Ronin said, his voice a genial rumble. “You must be the guy they call Boss.”

It was, which was really not the hulking overpowered suave uber-mobster Ronin had half expected.

Which didn’t mean he wouldn’t have hit points and to spare, so Ronin kept his distance, pulled up a chair (discarded it, and pulled up a chair that had all its legs), and plopped down.

Boss kept staring at him.

“I’m here on behalf of Clint Barton,” Ronin said, then shrugged. “Well. Mostly.”

“Barton should know better than to mess with us, bro,” Boss hissed, and sat down across from him, leaning back and crossing his arms. “Is no good. We retaliate, is only one of him, is many of us.”

“Ah, but that’s the thing, isn’t it? There _isn’t_ only one of him. Okay, well, there is. But there isn’t only _him_ is there? But I’m sorry, we haven’t been introduced. I’m Ronin.” He held out his hand, and Boss stared at it as if he expected it to flip open and reveal hidden lasers.

“I know you think he’s alone,” Ronin continued, ignoring the glare, “because that’s the only way that pathetic play of yours works. And god knows the dude is stupid enough to act like he’s alone half the time. He didn’t remember to call his friends in until things went really to shit. Good job, playing off that. You know how to spot a weakness.” He tilted his head, smiling under his mask, and Boss tilted his head back.

“Thank you,” he said primly.

“‘Course,” and Ronin kept his voice free and easy, “you’re not the only one. F’r instance, the bond company, and the bowling alley? And your friends in the precinct and up in city hall? They’re none of them that hard to get to, if you try. Money is so…” he waved one hand in the air, “intangible… these days. What’s a few ones and zeroes here or there? Or, as I’m sure you know, a few photos that the press might like. Oh, and have you noticed your accounts in the Caymans yet? Pity.”

Boss had a good poker face, he had to give the guy that. If Ronin hadn’t been so damned used to Phil Coulson and his microexpressions, he might never have noticed the eye twitch.

But it was at the eye twitch that he knew his hook had taken, had set well. He leaned forward.

“You and I both know you can rebuild from this, we know you have other accounts and friends I haven’t bothered with yet and bigger connections. But all those connections take time, Boss. And they take money that you don’t have, and meanwhile you’ll keep losing ground.”

“So what you want, huh? We leave Barton and his building alone?” 

“Yeah, you’ll leave him alone for the space of a half minute, won’t you? Come back just as soon as I loosen the noose.”

Boss nodded at him, leaning forward and letting his wormy little hands dangle. His smile was tobacco stained and terrifying.

“Well, bro, can you blame us?”

“Maybe I should make my position clear. Barton finally got off his hangdog ass and called for help. And I answered. And I don’t do half measures. This? This is a _taste_ of what I can do. This is two hours worth of work. And I don’t need to be on the same continent with you to do it. Of course, if I am, I can practice my hand to hand as well. Need to keep in form, right?” Two days, more like, and much of it JARVIS’s work, or that of SI’s best corporate lawyers, but their fine roman handprints had been carefully scrubbed from the scene of the, um, crime. “I’m Ronin, and you can look me up later. Go ahead, in fact.” No, please, go ahead. That fucking debacle in the East which had nearly gotten both him and the old Ronin killed might finally be useful for something (besides getting him into the Rising Tide.)

“So what you saying, bro? You going to try to take down whole organization?” Boss shook his head slowly, still smiling. “Go ahead. Seriously, bro. Try.”

Ronin shrugged.

“Nah, too much bother, no need to go that far, right? You offered Clint a deal. A way out. Here’s _my_ deal: the harassment stops, now. Leave Barton the fuck alone. If you escalate, I escalate. Are we clear?”

“That it? What we get out of it?”

“Ah, well. Those Caymans accounts? Good luck finding the money that was in them. That’s a lot gone at once. Problems like that, an organization doesn’t need a ninja poking at it to falter, its rivals will do that for the ninja. But… if all the problems at Barton’s building are fixed, within a week, and stay fixed? One account comes back.”

Boss sat up a little straighter at that. Ronin smiled at him, feeling it was a little unfair he had the mask on, because he was pretty sure he was doing a perfect Phil Coulson I Will End You If You Cross Me smirk.

“Only one?”

“To start. I told you, you offered Barton a deal. I appreciate that. I’m returning the favor. At the end of the month, if you’re still being good? You get another account back.”

“And the rest?”

“The rest is gone, bro. Seriously. A lesson. A cheap one, all things considered. Deal?”

Boss nodded, held out his hand, and Ronin crushed it briefly.

“Is deal.” _For now_ his eyes said. Ronin wouldn’t have expected less, really.

“Good. I want you to remember: Barton has friends. And we’re always watching you.”

(And with JARVIS’s help, and the lawyers, and if Kate would come back or Nat, and given that god knew Clint would probably not be on SHIELD missions in the near future? That was even partially true. Might become true.

Until then? Fake it till you make it. Words to live by.

Seriously, bro.)

____

The crash hit him like the proverbial freight train. He’d stripped off the armor bit by bit, and the adrenaline leached out of all his pores, saturated the couch cushions as he lay there in a shaking ball.

“What the fuck have I done?” Clint whispered to himself. “What. The actual _fuck_ have I done?” 

When the shakes passed, the laughter came, and it was more than a touch hysterical.

“Okay, okay, Barton,” he muttered to himself when the laughter had turned to tears then silence again. “Food.”

He slumped over the microwave as the burrito bubbled and cracked within, nearly invisible behind splattered greasy glass.

It burned his tongue, and his hands were unsteady around it, but it his head cleared a little.

Enough to remember that he was meeting with Fury and Hill tomorrow.

“Oh holy fuck,” he said, and nearly threw up the burrito.

____

 

She let him get all the way to her office-- at the New York Hub-- an emptier, smaller Hub now that so many personnel had moved to DC to supervise the building of their massive helicarrier-wrecks-in-waiting. 

She let him get all the way into her inner sanctum, sitting in the scratchy chair across from her desk as she stared back at him. Then she told him.

“We’re going to need to postpone a little, Agent Barton,” Deputy Director Hill said quietly, and folded her fingers together over the desk. 

Clint couldn’t help but think that Phil did it better, that calm bureaucratic mask. But then, Clint could admit his biases. 

Though thinking about Phil at the moment was a _horrible_ idea.

“Why?” he asked. For a long moment, he thought she wasn’t going to answer, then realized she was waiting for a ma’am.

Oh, what the hell.

“Ma’am?”

“Director Fury is currently… needed elsewhere.”

“So… when? Ma’am?” She glanced away from him, then, just a miniscule amount, the tiniest of glances, and Clint sat up straighter despite himself. She was worried about something to do with Fury.

They might not actually be jerking him around this time.

“That’s… yet to be determined.”

“So… what about me? I’m just on suspension until he gets back? Gotta sit around my department collecting dust? You may not trust me, ma’am, but you can _use_ me. I know I’ve fucked up-- gone AWOL, pissed on psych, jumped the gun on missions, but I’m still fucking here. ” 

She shrugged, looking off beyond his head.

“It’s the system, Barton, it’s not personal. We have to go through the protocols. You admit your mistakes, you need to go through the procedures to correct them.”

It still sounded tempting, actually, to be on suspension-- and how much of that was a measure of his depression versus how much the thought of being active at SHIELD roiled his gut, Clint wasn’t sure. Made him mad, too, though. That was probably growth, of a sort. So he met her shrug with a little pocket of rage, bubbling up out of who knew what forgotten corner of his spleen:

“Ma’am, now is not the time to be falling back on ‘the system.’ I _know_ we’ve got new shit coming down the pike, and coming soon. It’s so goddamned obvious everybody knows it. Dogs know it. Hell, probies fresh from the Academy know it. Doesn’t take any special knowledge.” This was… an exaggeration. More than an inspired guess, since after all he was friends with Natasha (and had his virtual fingers in a whole lot of SHIELD pies) but less than a certainty. 

It worked, Hill’s attention was on him fully now. She _was_ worried. In a way that didn’t sort well with just shiny new floating toys. And Fury had tucked Phil away on a mobile command unit. It was the merest thread of an idea, but he grabbed hold and ran with it:

“And whatever’s going to come, you need all the competent people you can get, and I don’t think you have enough. You’ve got me. I don’t know if you realize just how big a deal that is right now.”

“How big a deal is it, Agent Barton?” Hill let her clipped tones drop into the conversation like shrapnel. Clint realized vaguely, somewhere in the coherent back of his brain, that he was angry. Actually angry, as in actually feeling rage streak through his veins.

It must be how Banner felt, all the time.

“Look, I have no personal animosity against SHIELD.” Clint said, leaning forward and not caring if he looked threatening anymore. Hill of all people could handle it. “I’ve given it more loyalty than you have any idea. I went rogue, yeah, but I had a _fucking alien in my head_. SHIELD made calls about how to handle me, when I came back from that, calls you thought you had to make. Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t, but you did it and you can deal with the damn fallout from them. You've been jerking me around six ways from Sunday and now you're pissed I've been jerking back, that’s why you put me in time out."

It wasn’t, perhaps, the best argument for being allowed back on the active roster, but perhaps that was less the point than just… letting _go_ for once. He swallowed hard and tried to compose himself a bit, before the next part.

“And here’s the thing: you always say to trust the system, but the system clearly doesn't trust me right now. I don't know if they system ever did, or if it was just Nat and Coulson and a few other friends. But Coulson's gone and you've taken Nat away, and now we're both finding out that the system was never enough-- and I doubt it is for any of us. You can sit here and give your speeches at me all you want, we’ve done this before, and I really don’t give a shit anymore. But because of _them_ , and because of Cap and hell, even Sitwell, a few other people here and there, I’m still here, if you need me. 

“And Ma’am? You really need me. SHIELD needs me.”

 _And fuck everything, if you won’t take me, I’m just gonna have to find my way back here, because you have my friends. I need them back. Nat and Sitwell and Cap and Skye and Coulson-- fuck-- Phil._ She’d flinched at Coulson’s name. That… had to mean something. Did that mean something?

He’d never held his breath so long before. Hill stared at him with those damn doe eyes of hers-- limpid and dark and impossible to read. Finally, she sighed, and looked down at her hands.

“You were on your own long before you came here, weren’t you Agent Barton? You were good at it.”

His blood froze in his body.

“I was. That doesn’t mean I don’t prefer a team around me. Tell me that Coulson and I together-- even before Strike Team Delta-- weren’t better than either of us apart. Tell me that Nat and I weren’t the best goddamn team you’ve seen.” That actually got a hint of a smile from her.

“You were. Coulson… trained you well. You were lucky in your colleagues.”

Yes, yes indeed he had been. But why did Hill sound so careful now? She was staring at him as if deciding whether to eat him. Clint sat as still as he could and waited.

“You’re still on suspension, Agent Barton. Officially, leave with pay. To get your head on straight.” 

Well.

So that was that then. 

Clint got up to go, feeling hollow and strained around the eyes, when she looked up.

“Unofficially?” she said, and for a moment he thought he saw an actual emotion cross her face, or maybe a series-- possibly even some guilt mixed in there. “Don’t go too far, and keep your lines of communication open.” She paused there, as if trying to keep from saying any number of things, and that was when it really, truly hit Clint.

She knew Coulson was alive. He’d suspected as much, god knew, since the beginning, but the whatever-it-was she wanted to say so badly, or didn’t want to say but knew he needed to hear, was radiating from her. 

How much did she know?

He nearly missed what she said next, quiet and steel-certain, her eyes holding his:

“There will be work that only you can do. I promise. The Director or I will be in contact, very soon.”

Somehow, he didn’t think she was talking about milk runs anymore, either.

“And Barton?” Clint paused in the middle of standing up. Her face hadn’t changed, but she paused a long moment before speaking. “Just in case of emergency? Stay in touch with Stark, please.”

Clint nodded and left, and looked back to find the shadows gathering around her like strands in a web. 

He was beginning to feel more and more like a juicy fly. So was Phil. He was oh, so certain.

He just wondered who the spider was, in this scenario.

____

 

Life was getting better slowly since the conversation with Hill, at least in that Clint no longer slept-- when he slept-- on the couch. He’d gotten to the point, between training and running and watching out for Tracksuits and days full with deferred maintenance on the building, of managing to drag his laptop up to his bed so he could be an insomniac in comfort.

A couple of the neighbors had taken to bringing him leftovers from time to time-- likely at Simone’s instigation, since the first tupperware had been full of spaghetti-o’s, and brought over by her younger boy. (Come to think of it, it was probably at the kid’s instigation, and crap crap crap, eyes stoppit.) So at least his burrito stash would last longer and his diet no longer consisted mostly of things with complex chemical names on lines 2-5 of the ingredients list.

There were still going to be down days. Like today, when he lay curled in bed, trying to decide if peeling himself loose from his grungy sheets to go take a shower in his mildewy bathroom was worth it before he got on with his rounds. He’d tried reading, it wasn’t working. Tried watching Dog Cops on his laptop, and shut it down with a sigh just after Detective Rufus quipped “You found a lens prescription on the victim? So he was a … cock-eyed spaniel?” and pawed his sunglasses back onto his face.

Clint was about to try jerking off again-- he’d actually made it work, the other night, coasting on a mix of nearly formless memories of hands and lips and the feel of a cock in his ass, a mouth around his, hips-- any sort of hips-- and a truly impressive set of blue balls. It’d been nothing but mechanical but at least it had been that. This morning had been going well, up until those hips had turned into Phil’s writhing beneath him, one night in the dark of a motel room. Not even Phil’s room-- Phil wasn’t even supposed to be on the op; he’d come from a different city, a different op gone truly to shit, and he’d been begging to be held, desperate to forget.

Clint hadn’t so much stopped being able to get off at that point-- so there was progress-- as he’d gotten lost thinking about what that night, and a few other nights since when Phil’d let all his walls down in the circle of Clint’s arms, had _meant_ \-- or not meant. 

Fucked if he could come up with any answers-- at least any he liked.

So, where was he? See, this was why he hadn’t gotten out of bed yet. It was less depression than distraction and what was buzzing in his bedside drawer?

Oh, the Clint Cam.

Oh!

The Clint Cam!

“Hey, now _that_ is how you greet a girl!” Skye said from the Cam, since in his desperation to answer the thing before it went to message, he’d flipped it open but kept it trained away from his face.

And right on his bare chest, apparently.

He realized he was laughing only after he was done-- it still felt strange. Skye’s own laughter sat as badly on her as his did on him.

“C’mon, if you don’t want to show your face put on the mask or something. It’s a nice chest, but it’s creeping me out-- cover up so you’re willing to talk to me properly.”

Clint set the cam down carefully on his bed while he reached over for a twist of mostly-clean black fabric on the floor. He shook it out in front of the cam, then slowly slipped it on, stretching languorously as each arm went through a sleeve.

“SO not funny, dude,” Skye said, as he brought the cam back into focus on his now-clothed chest. “If I’d ever doubted you were SHIELD, though, I wouldn’t now, the way it’s stamped on your pec.” He glanced down and oh-- yeah. It was the SHIELD shirt he’d taken from Phil’s office on the Bus, way back in Wichita.

How fucking… something.

“So what’s up?” he asked, because Skye was trying with the banter, really, but it wasn’t working well. 

“Everything? Nothing? It’s… I don’t think I can tell you,” she sighed, and pushed her hair out of her eyes. She was in a corner of the SUV again; her own little confessional. That she'd been sprung from the medical cube was a good sign. “I really wish he’d told you.”

“He-- Phil? Is he all right?” 

“No! He’s not. He’s definitely not all right, I just… I’m not sure if he’s not all right but still right, or not all right but seriously wrong, do you know what I mean? It’s… the thing is that what happened to him, I kinda, well, no, I shouldn’t-- he told me not to tell anyone, which is kind of whiplash from that no secrets thing he was doing, right? And I’m not sure which was the real AC. Do you get me?”

Clint gulped, ducked his head, and nodded before realizing she couldn’t see it. So whatever had happened to him, he’d told her. 

“I get you. Is he, um, is he doing that little eggshell smile of his? Do you know the one I mean?”

“... Yes. He also got kind of ranty about the subject with me the other day? I just… I don’t have the intel I need, I don’t know where we actually stand. I wish you could still pass me information.”

Ranty. Phil. _Ranty._ Anger on him was cold, passion on him was usually a torrent of babbling followed by an embarrassed smile. Ranty? 

“I can try, Skye,” he addressed the request because he couldn’t get his head around the Phil, “but… I’m kind of on the outs at SHIELD right now. If there’s anything you need me to look for, send it in our old private channel-- I don’t think Quinn had found that before, well-- before.”

“You heard, then. I was hoping… I figured you had.”

“Could stand to hear it from your point of view if-- shit, that’s the door! Who the--”

Clint dropped the cam, as a bark floated up the stairs towards him, followed very quickly by a scrabble of paws and then the impact of a large dog against his chest.

Skye was laughing on the Cam when he managed to find it again. 

“Hey, you around?” Kate’s voice was tentative, and Clint struggled to shove Lucky off him. “What am I even saying, of course you’re around, I can hear Lucky’s tail thump from here. Come down? I’m not coming up unless you tell me it’s safe.”

“Damnit, girly girl! Warn a guy!” He shouted back, then muttered “Later, Skye, old channels, promise I got your back” at the Cam’s general direction as he flipped it closed.

Never did remember how he got down the stairs-- some tangle of him and Lucky and too-long pajama pants-- but he’d have sworn Kate’d never looked quite so damned good as she did at that moment. 

Well, she looked like she’d just driven several days straight without sleep and with a large and not-hotel-friendly dog, but she looked there and sparkling and… actually, a hell of a lot older than she had when she’d left. Not in a bad way. In an “oh, so that’s what ‘young woman’ means,” way. Even with a sloppy ponytail in her dark hair and those huge designer sunglasses dwindling her chin into nothingness, she was more put-together now, somehow.

“You’re back sooner than I expected. California was good to you,” he said, and meant it, and got a smile.

“And Lucky,” she said to him, although Lucky was doing his best to burrow in between Clint’s legs as if he never meant to move again. “Yeah I thought I’d stay longer but it turned out… anyway. Anything interesting happen while we were gone? Were you here at all, even? Did you miss us?”

“Katie-Kate, you have _no_ idea.”

____

 

“So,” Kate said as she poured herself a mug of coffee (pretty much the one thing other than burritos and beer that Clint had been sure to keep in stock during the worst of it), “what happened to that guy of yours? He looked like _shit_. Well, semi-attractive older dude shit, but shit.”

Clint sat straight up from where he’d been sprawled on the couch, replying to Nat’s latest text, which read “Just got back and another mission. Off to DC to pick up a fossil we both know. After that back to see you. Promise.” He’d been distracted by the implications in the text, but tuned right back in at “that guy of yours.” He was pretty sure-- though he’d never admit it, even under torture-- that he yelped when he said:

“You saw Phil? _Where?_ ”

“LA,” Kate shrugged, as if it were no big deal. As if it were the most natural thing in the world for Phil to just happen to show up where she was and just look like shit and… _semi-_ attractive older dude? Youth was wasted on the young, because Phil was only growing more smokin’ as the years went on and LA? Really? Would she expl-- she was explaining.

“... so yeah, no, it was just a random thing, out on the beach one day. I asked if I was allowed to know him, and he said sure, since he was on his own. Except for Lola, which turns out to be a car. The little red one? Yeah. We didn’t have long to talk, since he had to meet a… person about a thing, I guess. Very Man in Black, or, well, blue with pinstripes, I guess, in this case.” She paused in her talking to look over at him, her eyes uncomfortably sharp. 

“Clint? What _happened_? I mean, he seemed so _embarrassed_ when I asked if he’d heard from you. He just kept petting Lucky like he didn’t know how to stop, but he wouldn’t ask me much…. He, you know… he looked so sad when I told him you were back in New York without us.” She was leaning forward now, and darted a hand out towards his knee. It withdrew to curl around her cup before it could touch him.

Clint tilted his head back, considered-- very strongly considered-- lying about the whole damn thing. Brushing it off. Opened his mouth to say “nothing” and saw Skye’s confused eyes in his mind.

“Well… well, I guess we… we were both in bad places. Very bad places. And we broke up.” Wow, his knees were fascinating, no wonder Kate’d reached out. There was this little threadbare patch on his right, how had that gotten there? He picked at it fitfully, trying not to hear whatever sounds Kate might be making, because something had just sounded _moist_ over there.

After a moment, Kate’s fine hand-- tanned and strong and perfect-- slid into his range of vision and covered his, pressing lightly.

“I’m sorry. Clint, I’m sorry. Was it bad?” 

He intended to shrug, but apparently instead he was nodding so hard he felt dizzy. Yeah, yeah it was bad. He tried to describe just _how_ bad, realized just as he was starting to that details of his inability to jack off were not on Kate’s need-to-know _ever_ and amended himself.

“I just… kinda lay here drunk for a while, not able to get my mind off him, since, well, you weren’t here and Nat wasn’t here and I didn’t have anyone to kick my ass. Yeah, I admitted it,” he said in answer to her strangled little noise at that. 

“You should have called, I’d have come. I should have been check-- you should have let me know, damnit.”

“Why? You needed to get away from your Dad, and I get that-- god do I get that. I didn’t want to be a bother. Anyway, I got a little distracted after that with other shit which… I better tell you about that later. Remind me I gotta introduce you to Ronin, he might come around a bit.” 

He paused for a moment, thinking again about Nat’s text, about Hill’s conversation with him. 

At the worst of it, he’d seen himself trapped in the apartment forever, slowly mouldering into the couch, unless he sold. Even after his confrontation with the Tracksuits, he’d assumed he’d be around. The prickle on the back of his neck told him now that he’d miscalculated. If he wanted to keep the building protected, he didn’t have long to do it. Kate had come back at just the right time.

She’d tilted her head at him, an arched eyebrow inviting him to continue.

“And, um, if you could watch the building, and maybe we could ask Deke too, or hire like some private detectives or somebody ‘cause I’ve got a feeling work’s gonna suck soon.” He waited for her normal huff of exasperation at that. It didn’t come. “Well, and maybe you could talk to your friends. Ugh, later. I don’t want to think about that for once. My head still hurts.”

“Phil?” she prompted him when he ran down.

“Phil. Whatever, I’ve been getting better, bit by bit. It’s just a real mind trip, because I don’t know… I think he’s hurting bad. Not… not from me, I think I’m just kinda a side-issue. But whatever happened to him, I think he’s much worse than he’s letting anyone know, so,” another shrug, “so I guess I was a threat to that, or something? I wish… I just wish he’d have let me help, Kate. I know I really suck at it, okay?” 

“Clint--” her hand tightened on his, and he patted it. Still didn’t look up. And didn’t stop talking because he wasn’t sure he could, not when it was all pouring out at once, finally, like the faucet had finally come unclogged or something.

“I _do_ suck at it, but at least sometimes he used to let me help, he used to trust me to help, I know we weren’t really-- I mean, I _don’t_ know, actually, what he thought about me otherwise. But he used to trust me and I’d have done _anything_ to help, because I love him. And… shit. That’s, fuck, I can’t believe I just said that. I love him.”

After a while he _had_ to look at her, because the silence had gone on too long. Kate was staring at him, her jaw slightly dropped.

“What?” he said, knowing he sounded like a ten-year-old kid who’d just talked about farts in mixed company.

“Okay, seriously, you didn’t realize you were in love with him?” 

He nodded, and watched Kate bury her head in her hands.

“Oh my GOD, you idiots. Both of you. Idiots. How could you possibly have not noticed?” 

Clint shrugged, even though she couldn’t see it. He didn’t have a better answer. Her head popped back up, and her gaze scoured his face.

“But… it’s over now?”

“I… guess? I mean, I walked out on him, but I kinda had no choice. It’s just… I don’t know. I mean, if he’s in trouble, of course I'll go, I’ll do anything.… But he doesn’t want me around. That way. And even if he did, I’m not sure….” How the hell did he explain the roiling mess in his stomach at the thought? The anger, the longing, the way his gut was practically tugging him out a window with how badly he wanted to _flee_ at the prospect of seeing Phil again… of what might happen if he did.

“You’re not sure _what_?”

Her eyes were so clear, focused on him, and it seemed like a grace he didn’t deserve, at the same time that he was aware that… yes, around the edges, Kate was mad. At him possibly, at Phil… maybe? How’d he know? But also, yes, there was the dig of teeth at her lip that she got when she felt she hadn’t made a shot quite right. She was mad at herself. 

She also looked like Skye, just at that moment, young and strong and lost. Clint blew out a breath, and nodded to himself.

For all he was often told-- for all he often told himself-- that he was childish, he felt ancient, right now, and worn with the floods of ages. 

“Katie-Kate, if it were you and I were giving you advice, I’d tell you to run from anyone who doesn’t appreciate you the way you deserve. Who doesn’t see how amazing you are, who isn’t a partner to you. Who doesn’t love you back. And you keep telling me-- you and Nat and everyone-- that I gotta respect myself. What the fuck else do you expect me to do?”

Kate nodded, slowly, put her coffee cup down, and curled onto the couch next to him, uncertain for a moment then settling in on his shoulder. Her hair was silky, smelled like wind and dust and freesias when he laid his cheek against it, and he felt his lungs start to open again. 

Lucky’s jaw was heavy and sharp against his thigh, where the dog had laid himself down with a long sigh and promptly fallen asleep.

Voices raised down on the street, some kind of argument, not violent, and faded. Dusk settled in, the red sunset creeping across his windows, and Kate and Lucky breathed around him, and he held her hand and buried his other in rough fur.

After a while, Kate stirred just long enough to say 

“Are you sure he doesn’t?”

And Clint didn’t know how to answer that.

FIN

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings: Depression, hints of PTSD, and a panic attack. There’s an up ending; the turning point is about halfway through and marked with asterisks, if you need to skim until then.
> 
> Next up in the series: We check in with Skye as she tries to handle two men who can’t figure out how to talk to each other. After that we find out what Phil and Kate said to each other, what Hill really meant and much more, as Phae phixes Phil. 
> 
> Want to know more about that first time? Check out the [Two-Man ‘Verse, collection.](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/TwoManVerse)
> 
> I love your comments and kudos, and I hug them and squeeze them and keep them forever. I also tumbl as:[kat-har](http://kat-har.tumblr.com/)


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